Thread: What advice to give to customer?

Being new in the market, I'm starting to see more homes on the market that aren't moving as quickly as the first of year. What advice would you give your customer once you've gone over CMA, noting there are about five houses in the neighborhood for sale of same value?

Coastal,

I'm not an agent, but as a marketing geek, I'd suggest that the client invest in professional home staging. There's enough evidence to prove that it can make a significant impact. And, in that competitive a situation, it might be well worth it.

If you don't know any stagers, visit Staged Homes and do a search for stagers in your area. Some agents give the home staging as a closing gift.

I'm sure the agents here will have other ideas about what you can do as the listing agent to make a difference, too.

Good luck with it.

Kathleen

KSA,

Great idea and loved the website thanks again for your suggestion and will talk with my customer about the possiblity of making that happen .

Also if they are in a hurry they need to be priced correctly. Homes aren't going up in value like the past few years, in some markets they are seeing price decreases. It's all about pricing and making it look as good as possible (staging is a start).

Originally Posted by kensmith

Also if they are in a hurry they need to be priced correctly. Homes aren't going up in value like the past few years, in some markets they are seeing price decreases. It's all about pricing and making it look as good as possible (staging is a start).

Ken

You are right on target. I am in the market for a condo in St Pete and have seen several that I like. The problem is that they are all priced at or above what they were last year when a property got multiple offers within hours of coming on the market. Today listings hang there for months and months. This should be a wake up call but it doesn't seem to matter. I decided to wait it out for awhile longer. What drove the market in So Florida was a combination of baby boomers, speculators and investors. I believe that the baby boomers will come back into the market when the speculators and investors are squeezed to the point that they have to dump their holdings.

The catch is that currently the interest rates are going up quickly so waiting in many areas isn't a good idea. The prices aren't going to go down in most parts of the country, FL is different. But wanted other readers to realize that waiting is goign to cost them in higher payments and NO the rates are not going to go back down into the 5's, more likely we hit 8%.

Originally Posted by kensmith

The catch is that currently the interest rates are going up quickly so waiting in many areas isn't a good idea. The prices aren't going to go down in most parts of the country, FL is different. But wanted other readers to realize that waiting is goign to cost them in higher payments and NO the rates are not going to go back down into the 5's, more likely we hit 8%.

That is an excellent point Ken. You need to weigh the costs of higher interest rates. I did some quick calculations and in the $300,000 price range 1 point is roughly equivalent to $10,000.

Update to my property search. The property I was most interested in is owned by a realtor who lowered the price substantially on Friday. I put an offer in and it was accepted. Your post got me to thinking that even though there may be further price declines they will be off set by rate increases.

This site has been helpful for many that I have refered as well. Good one KSA

Here in Southwest Florida we're seeing a lot of this. First thing you can do is try to get your buyers to a reasonable price point. The next thing you can do (if that doesn't work) is find a way to market their home effectively. Look for unique traits that your listing has that the other four does not and market using those facts. I recently heard a story from someone in my office that took a listing that had a shed out back. Most of the other homes did as well. However, the shed in his listing had running water and electricity. It's a very minor detail but he put it in his MLS listing and low and behold, a buyer came along that wanted a workshop and the running water and electricity because a huge selling point.

That's just one simple example but it does go to show that you can find unique traits that may seem small to you but not necessarily to a buyer that comes along.

Interest rates have actually come down in the recent weeks, and there is little upward pressure on them at the moment. The Fed is easing back, plus the global economy has been keeping a lid on rates, directly affecting the ability for the FED to have the control they used to over interest rates. And with everything that is going on in the world, we don't see a huge risk of inflation outside of fuel costs. So I wouldn't be so worried about rates going up anytime in the near future. We will probably see a plateau of the rates we are currently at for at least the next 6-12 months. We will continue to see a strong buyers market, which means this is a time to market that there are a lot more homes to see and it is a perfect time for buyers to take advantage of that. Don't scare them with interest rates, because it could backfire on you, causing them to back out of purchasing anything at all, at least for the time being.